Take an inconceivably large number: at least a few dozen billion. Now take a date, not too far in the future, but not so close that you can be held to account for it. There, that is as good an estimate as any for the number of devices that will be connected to the Internet—the so called “Internet of Things”—by whatever date you thought of.

IoT refers to the idea of connecting literally everything to the Internet. In business it might range from the sensors in a chemical factory to the hand-towel dispenser in the washroom. In the home it might be your car, your kettle, your toaster, the light bulbs in your house, even the mousetraps in your attic. Why do this? Because, claim proponents, it is going to generate a very large amount of money.

Actual estimates for how many devices will be connected by 2020 vary from around 30 billion (ABI Research report) to 50 billion (Cisco Systems ). No one really knows, but in a world of “Next Big Things”, the IoT, its proponents claim, is a very, very, very Big Thing indeed.

The Internet of Things is one of those phrases that is entering the lexicon, but like so many new ideas, it is rather hard to pin down exactly what it means.

Essentially it means adding Internet connectivity to everyday objects in order to make them more useful. Andy Stanford-Clark, who enjoys the job title of master inventor and distinguished engineer at IBM Inc., is as classic a geek-evangelist as you are going to find. Speaking at the Internet of Things conference held at the University of Cambridge on June 27, he gave a great example of what the Internet of Things means.

Mr. Stanford-Clark lives on the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. The only way to get to and from the island is by ferry. The problem, said Mr. Stanford-Clark, was that sometimes ferries would be delayed, or even canceled, and there was no way of knowing without turning up at the port.

However, overall the EU compares favorably to the U.S. when it comes to average download speeds (measured in Megabits/second, or Mbps) for all three popular forms of broadband: the most common form of broadband (known as xDSL — delivered over traditional copper phone lines); cable; and fiber (known as FTTx).

xDSL: Europe: 7.20Mbps. U.S.: 5.30Mbps

Cable: Europe: 33.10Mbps. U.S.: 17.00Mbps

xDSL: Europe: 41.02Mbps. U.S.: 30.20Mbps.

While European consumers are getting faster services than in the U.S., they aren’t getting the speeds that are typically advertised. On average, speeds are only 74% of the advertised headline speed.

Given that two-thirds of the population of The Netherlands lives in flood-prone areas and the country has 16,496 kilometers (10,250 miles) of dikes, it is not surprising that the Dutch have something of a close relationship with water.

IBM Inc., has just landed a €1 million ($1.3 million) ‘big data’ research project in the country to bring together disparate data sources related to water to help the authorities plan reactions to deluges, monitor water quality, improve internal navigation — in short pretty much anything to do with water in the country.

The program is in collaboration with Rijkswaterstaat (the Dutch Ministry for Water), local Water Authority Delfland, Deltares Science Institute and the University of Delft.

The value of Europe’s mobile spectrum could double over the next 10 years, according to a report published on behalf of the mobile industry Thursday.

The report, commissioned by the GSMA, which represents the interests of mobile operators world-wide, said the use of licensed spectrum contributes €269 billion ($357.66 billion) to the European Union economy. That is set to grow to €477 billion by 2023 if additional frequencies currently being used by digital TV and other applications are freed up.

However, a technology startup says there is potentially greater value to be had from more innovative use of the scarce frequencies by allowing anyone, not just licensed operators, to use it. The GSMA report didn’t look at the potential value created by unlicensed spectrum.

In the old days, almost all mobile traffic was person-to-person — either calls or SMS messages. Today there is more data than voice carried on networks, and the drive for more and more data is relentless. By 2020, the GSMA report predicts, a whole new market will have opened up in machine-to-machine communication. The report suggests that it will grow from nothing today to €220 billion by 2013, a big share of which (€89 billion) will be carried over the networks belonging to its members.

Online apparel generated more than $5 billion in exits over the past four years

From its first faltering steps with the ill-fated boo.com in early 2000, online apparel has surged to become the second-largest e-commerce sector (after consumer electronics) globally and is forecast to grow to a $73 billion market by 2016, according to a report published Wednesday.

European tech investment bank GP Bullhound says the sector will enjoy 16% compound annual growth rates between 2012-2016 and can achieve gross margins roughly twice that of consumer electronics. The report says there has been more than $5 billion in exits over the past four years.

According to Sasha Afanasieva, the report’s author and vice president at GP Bullhound, the high level of activity means there are a great number of opportunities.

In another sign of the increasing importance of London as a tech hub, startup accelerator TechStars London has Monday announced a permanent base.

According to Jon Bradford, MD of TechStars London, the aim of the permanent base, at Warner Yard, is aimed at giving both those in the 90-day accelerator program, but just as importantly the “alumni”– those who have been through the intensive business coaching scheme — a base from which to work.

“The problem for startups [at the end of an accelerator program] is that at just the time when they need somewhere to work, they have to find somewhere new,” he said. “We think giving them a base for the next three months is really important.

“What you do to continue to support teams in the immediate aftermath, but more generally in the longer term around the alumni, is going to be the next big evolution for accelerators.”

When a global retail giant says near-field communication, or NFC, has passed it sell-by-date, then you have to sit up and pay attention.

Speaking at a mobile-payments conference in London, Lyndon Lee, enterprise consultant architect for the U.K.-based supermarket giant Tesco PLC, gave an excoriating assessment of the technology that has been long touted as an alternative to cash.

NFC is a contactless radio technology that can transmit data between two devices within a few centimeters of each other. Coupled with a security chip to encrypt that data, it promises to transform a wide range of consumer experiences from simple ticketing to the holy grail — replacing your cash and payment cards with your smartphone.

The team that was part of one of Europe’s biggest tech exits has been reformed in a move that, it hopes, will re-establish a true open-source model for a key part of Web technology.

The team behind the MySQL database has been substantially reunited with the merger of SkySQL Corporation AB with Monty Program AB. The merger reunites Monty Widenius, co-creator of MySQL, who was running his own company, with a large number of the original team, including David Axmark, MySQL co-founder and currently on the board of SkySQL.

Driving the merger was the fear that MySQL, since its sale, was no longer a pure open-source project. The database, which drives a vast number of websites and is claimed to be the Web’s most popular database, was owned by Helsinki-based MySQL AB. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems Inc. in 2008 for $1 billion in what is still one of Europe’s biggest tech acquisitions. Sun itself was acquired by database giant Oracle Inc. in 2010.

Nokia Corp.’s quarterly results over the last few years have made for grim reading. The results for the first quarter of 2013 were potentially going to be another horror story. The company had already laid the groundwork, warning in its last report that this one would be bad. It was, but as it turned out, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Let’s look at the two highlights. Firstly, and most importantly, the performance of the flagship Lumia range, built on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone operating system. The Lumia is Nokia’s stake in the future. Even in the historically difficult first quarter (it comes after the holiday season) the company managed to ramp up sales by 27% to 5.6 million units. Pete Cunningham, principal analyst for Canalys, said this was a very major achievement and shouldn’t be under-played. “They are very bullish about the next quarter as well, saying they are going to sell seven million units.”

The other good result was a shoring up of the company’s challenged financial position, cutting losses dramatically from €928 million ($1.21 billion) in the first quarter of 2012 to €272 million in the same period this year. By one measure of reporting, the company returned another consecutive profitable quarter. It was able to strengthen its net cash position by €120 million.

About Tech Europe

Tech Europe covers Europe’s technology leaders, their companies, and the people and industries that support them — and their ideas. The blog is edited by Ben Rooney, with contributions from The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.